[Closed] USE Helix dropper

Scott's comment in this thread is the best I can offer

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/use-helix-dropper/#post-9899528

Just fitted one to my new build. First impressions are I’m gonna ditch it and teplace it with a reverb.

My frame routing is tight to get the cable through but heres what I’ve found just from fitting

1) Once the cable outer is in its in and not moving. Top sits half way down the seat tube. If i need to remove the seat the out doesnt come up far enough to let me takenout the post so need to undo the cable. But with the outer half way down the seat tube i cant rethread the cable unless cranks off and bottom bracket out. It wont go in my car unless seat comes off.

2) it says to pump to 50-100 psi. At 100 it come up like a greyhound off the line. Any less and it wont full extend.

3). Its noisy at first disengage / when it grabs to stop. To the point it sounds wrong. If thats clutch parts its gonna wear VERY quickly.

4)  cable feels really spongy and cant tell whether clutch has disengaged or reengaged. And it doesnt always engage firat time. Might be cos my frame shape makes for a tight down tube to seat tube bend

5) doesnt always rengage so slips down a bit.

I’ve tuned and tweaked as the instructions say and Granted a lot of the issues could be my frame shape but I’m not even gonna take it on the trail. External routed reverb for me.

Lot of money wasted 🙁

Maybe a little hasty.....after riding round my garden loads and fine tuning the bike / getting it set up properly I’ve sort of got used to the spongy lever and can control some of the noise and eliminate the slipping / ratchet grinding. Going off distance the lever moves rather than feel tells me where its about to move or not.

But I’m left with 2 annoying issues:

1) Absolutely no speed controll either whippet out of the traps or under control but wont go all the way up

2) it overextends on rebound so everytime i sit on it theres a clunk as the top ratchet engages to stop it dropping.

Mailed USE so will see what they have to say about it.

Good luck !

Ah will be interested to hear what they say, still limping on with gravity dropper at moment with a shim

Heard diddly from USE but kind of academic now. 10 miles into its first ride....horrendous crunching sound and clutch no longer engages. Air pressure pushes up but no clutch so it slowly sinks. Trailside cable adjustments no joy so limped the last 10 miles with slowly sagging post.

Back at the car took out the post and it appears its unwound itself and the plastic bottom has unscrewed itself. Tried screwing it back in but think the clutch has been digested when it came loose.

Shocking quality so its now going to be a warranty and if i can persuade Tweeks money back too. Bought a reverb from Evans for £160. My other 2 reverbs have been flawless.

So all up, well p’d off. £270 down the swanny as I’ll never use it again and surprisingly for USE its not convinced me its a quality item.

I’ve got an early version Gravity Dropper. From before the introduced the remote version......Russianesque! Industrial but just keeps going. I’m half tempted to get a shim and use it!

Thanks for insightful feedback Silasgreenback as I was half tempted for when I finally lose my hearing over the cracking noises coming from my KS Lev Integra.

Maybe you were a test guineapig for USE :/

But yeah Reverbs are reliable and at least you'll be albe to adjust rebound on the extension of post. I also hear nothing but good things from the web and a riding buddy for the Fox Transfer post so we'll see.

Have to say I’m pretty surprised given USE waited so long as they “wanted to get it right”. Maybe I’m unlucky but even compared to my Brand-X dropper this is most definitely seeming like a verion 0.9.

But also look around - not many places seem to be selling them and USE havent even bothered to answer conact form messages.  Wonder if theres more too it.......or maybe I’m just a conspiracist!!!  Certainly wouldnt recomend one anyway.

I have a hard time understanding why all the bad mouth around Reverbs.

Got a 170mm one 3 months ago. Relatively cheap (£200), premium finish, hydro remote is, IMO easier to shorten and sort out than most of the cable ones around. Bleeding the thing is just ridiculously easy and quick.

Because historically they failed lots. The warranty was good but that still meant weeks without the post. Having now had hydro, cable and electronic posts there is no way I'd go back to a hydro one.

Makes sense.

Mine is a '18 model year one, maybe a little better than before.

Had a cable dropper before, Pro Koryak, not missing it one bit

I have had two reverbs. Both developed side to side play and would drop a cm or two. I now have a xfusion manic, this has slight side to side play but doesn’t drop. I haven’t touched it since install 4 months ago. It just works and was only £160

I was hoping the USE would be reliable for the price.

I've a fox transfer on one bike and Magura Vyron on the other. Fox is new, hoping the reputation is justified. Feels really nice so far. Vyron is over two years old and still working perfectly.

Yeah well in an ideal world, I'd have a Vyron but haven't the funds to go splashing out for 2 new bikes worth of them even if I can get them with 30% off.

Can you give a quick review please of the Magura especially what the touch lever thingy is like to use.

thanks

The Vyron has been just fine. One of the reasons I bought it was to enable quick swapping between bikes. I only got tempted to add a second by the draw of 170mm from the unobtainable One-Up (the Fox Transfer was bought with the Evans credit from this failed purchase). Anyway I digress. The touch button is OK when used with the sleeve that makes it into a much bigger button. The tiny button on its own is crappy. I have mine installed between grip and brake lever so its right there to activate. Its not as nice a under bar lever but is better than the old reverb design. There is a delay (my post is a Mk1 so slower than what you would buy now). I've not found this a major issue, not like the reviews make out anyhow. However I mainly ride trails I know so don't often need to drop it quickly. I suspect it would be more of an issue when you don't know whats coming as if dropping in a hurry you have to hover to hold the post down while the port closes. I don't charge the post often and have not had issue with battery life. Once the remote would not work, it had lost sync for some reason. I couldn't remember how to resync so did the rest of the ride with the post mounted button. My only other concern is loosing the remote. I knocked it off in a crash once and had to reverse my path to find it (only realise 5 minutes later). I was dubious that it wouldn't fall off on the uplift at BPW but it didn't.

hmmmm interesting, fair bit of pros and cons to it but they'll always be a sarcifice/s to droppers I guess.

Its all relative.  Yes reverbs fail and the MK1’s has a supplier issue so a complete batch had a duff valve but SRAM are the market leader.  say they shift 1mil units pa and have a 1% failure rate.  That’s 10000 units and potentially a lot of negative press so jo punter thinks they’re unreliable.

Given the lack of availability of the USE I bet they dont even shift 10k units this year but lets say they do and they have a 5% failure rate.  Thats only 500 units and way less bad rep than SRAM. But which is worst?  I’d go with SRAM any day of the week at that rate.

A wise man once said “opinions are like ar53 holes.  Everyone has one but do you really want to look at one?”

People will always jump to the negative.....we’re british....thats what we do.  But social media and the web dont always make for properly informed decisions so read the web, take it with a pinch of salt and makes your own mind up.  Look at the bad rep commencal had for frame cracks.  Everyone had a mate that knew someone but most of the web was the same bike being touted round and round.

But I’m a little excessive on bikes.  Currently running 4 dropper posts:

2 x reverb = flawless

1 x Brand`X failed in less than 20 hrs riding.  3 months for a warranty replacement.

1 x USE Helix failed in 10 miles or about 1 hour.  WHo knows on warranty.

One of the guys in the group i ride with had a MK1 fail after 18 mths.  Repaired under warranty and had it back within 3 days of posting it.  That’s service.

Sure slag reverbs but at £160 for external routed vs the brandx at around £120 vs Helix at £250 then the plethora of posts in the £250-£300 mark they’re still damn hard to beat for the money.

Then there’s my Gravity Dropper Mk1 from late 90’s......now there’s a quality product!

I'm guessing your post is a aimed at all who read this thread but that I wrote above somewhere that reverbs are reliable and that there's pros and cons to all droppers.

That;s the great thing about bike forums, we all have opinions pretty much the same but still like to sound like arseholes even if we agree ;-d

I also liked how you put it regarding the numbers of posts made to the failure rate scenario.

well said

Hey tdog......I’d love to say you inspired me but it was more of a polite rant at the joker I met on the trail yesterday.

Conversation started “commencal; nice bike but youre brave.....dont their frames keep breaking” and then ended up with “reverb’s......they’re sh1t as well.....always breaking”. IN A SINGLE CONERSATION. AND I WAS POLITE TO HIM!!!!!

Deep sigh. Keep calm. Cycle on and feel smug that I wasn’t on his Apollo, no matter how “sh1t” my kit appeared in his mind 🙂

Hi SilasGreenBack,

I'm from USE and have been tipped off about this thread from one of our USE lovers. We're really sorry to hear that you've had any issues with one of our products and obviously want to get it sorted for you. I've checked the usual mailboxes but can't find any email from you, please contact us on info@use.group or call us on 01798 839300 and I'll get right on it!

Love the thread, very interesting debate on reliability of droppers. We saw the range available, all with their flaws that we just came to accept and spent a lot of time researching and developing our solution with reliability and home serviceability as core design principles. We believe the Helix delivers that and I've personally run a pre-production 165mm post on a Whyte medium T-130 for nearly a year, hitting the Surrey Hills regularly and a few trips to Wales with faultless reliability. Cable routing is always a challenge, we tested dozens of cables deciding on the Fibrax Ultralight because it was the smoothest on a number of frames. I run mine about 65psi and altering the pressure will vary the return speed so you don't do yourself any damage! We've also had riders like Scott out testing them, putting the clutch parts to the test so we could ensure its reliability. It'll make a bit of noise as it engages, but that mechanical, you know its working. The positive noise on full extension was something people liked, an audible confirmation that the post is fully extended,

Another publication recently did a review on the Helix and gave it a 9/10 and they should know what they're talking about!

Look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers.

Interesting response and that the GMBN video on the Helix got me interested in one the other day.

I'm guessing ''USE Support'' that I as a heavy rider can still use the Helix if I add more air to it to prevent it from dropping?

When it comes round to next choosing, I believe it would be between a Magura/Fox and yours going on what riders rate and the reviews.

Like I said, there will always be pros and cons to any dropper out there. Cheers 🙂

Hi Tdog,
Doddy at GMBN will be fitting that Helix to a bike and then there's the chance to win it in a comp!

Yes it's totally fine for a heavier rider. One of our Test Riders is 20stone! The post is mechanical with a patented clutch mechanism. The air pressure controls the return rate so is down to rider preference rather than rider weight. I weigh 12st and have just set mine to 55psi for this weekend in Wales!

Look at the bad rep commencal had for frame cracks.  Everyone had a mate that knew someone but most of the web was the same bike being touted round and round.

I dunno, some things are badly designed. An an example, I had two USE stems wth the original one-piece faceplate - like a Thomson - both of which cracked in use. Since I bought the stems several years ago, USE has changed the faceplate to a two-piece, twin-hoop, design.

When I e-mailed them asking about a replacement faceplate - both stems have sat unused for a few years - and suggesting that maybe the original one-piece faceplate design might have been flawed given that both of mine had failed in the same way despite being fitted with a torque wrench to the correct tightness, they said that they'd never heard of such a thing happening.

I'm a little bit dubious on that front, though it may just be a coincidence that the design was changed to a two-piece version rather than the original single-piece one.  Good customer service might have involved replacing the faceplate gratis or offering me a trade deal on the 20 quid plus replacement.

They didn't offer to do either. I bought a faceplate, which with postage cost me 25 quid or so,  to avoid writing off an otherwise perfectly good stem - I still have once stem with a broken faceplate -  but I won't be buying anything else from USE in the future and certainly not something with moving parts. A Thomson faceplate is £6.50 from CRC. I hate to think what spares for the Helix might cost you.

Fwiw, I've never had any issues with stem faceplates from Thomson, Easton, FSA or even Ragley. And don't get me started on the Sumo post seat clamp design - it rotates in use unless you add carbon grease and over-torque the bolt - let alone the thing - Alien? - that preceded it.

Spoke to Imogen at USE and apparently they’ve had a few problems with the first one’s shipped.....not being tightened up enough which is sounding like mine.

Said she’d get a replacement one out as soon as they get it back so looking up.

Not sure where the “Contact Us” form message went but hey ho....fingers crossed.

Great stuff Silasgreenback, Immo will get you sorted, sounds like your frame is a bit of a challenge but she's got an idea how to smooth that out. You should add extra cable length and push it into the frame so the cable takes a less direct route rounding off the corner to create less friction. We'll get you back shredding trails on you Helix soon!

When you get it back we would recommend running it at a much lower PSI, 50-60 max depending on how fast you like it!

I'll take it up with IT about where the Contact Us form goes so we don't miss anything.

Enjoy the weekend all!

Thanks....at 50-60 it wouldnt rebound fully but maybe just that post. Will see how i get in with the replacement.

If she can sort shock pumps and helmets too that’d be good 🙂

Maiden voyage so had practically a complete tool kit just in case. Seat post went then a while later came off (thought i could temember how to ride downhill with my post up!) landed on my pack and bust my shock pump and also bust the straps on my helmet so expensive night......but helmet is very old so cant complain at replacing it.

And before anyone says i need to replace every 5 years or so post your email and I’ll send you a video of just how much effort my sledge hammer too to break it.  I thought it’d be “degraded” and easy to break.  Dont care what the manufacturers say, that little experiment said it all!

Credit where credits due. Called USE last week and cant fault their service at all.

The problem.....the routing on my frame is ridiculously tight and sharp, despite being set up for internal routing. Think those knife sharpeners that create a tight V from some rollers that you then run your knife through to sharpen it. Thats the routing style inside my KTM. Restricted the cable movement. Then the post tightens naturally when it drops.  Apparently first few shipped werent tightened too much To resuce the risk of overtightening. So tight / restrictive frame choking the cable movement combined with not overly tight bottom nut conspired to undo the post. Later production posts are now much tighter so wont be a problem

anyway, brand new post and cable along with some bits and pieces and some ideas from them to try and fix my frame issues.  They’ve clearly spent time thinking about a solution so not just a fob off “give him a New post to shut him up”. Thanks guys and much appreciated. And in all honesty far better help than had i gone through my LBS.

So the million dollar question.....have i fitted the new one and does the new one work?  Sure it does. But in all honesty my frame is a complete faff to route cables through so I’ve not fitted it yet. Its cranks off,BB out then at least an hour to thread the cable from down tube to seat tube and I’ve currently got an externally routed reverb. will probably leave it like that for now. Only finished building the bike 10 days ago and cant be bothered to strip it down already.

BUT that’s no fault of the post. When i get some time spare it’ll probay be going on my Rocky Mountain that has sensible cable routing and internal frame guides for cables & hoses  no faffing and simple fit and forget routing.  Or possibly my winter bike which isnt stealth routing but does have an open bottom on the seat tube.

Anyway, happy.....for now!!!! 🙂

I came across this thread last week when searching for help when I also had the base came out of my helix post on a ride. Have now fixed the post and done a couple of test rides and thought would add my findings for any one else having problems and expand on some of the points above

<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">The air pressure is for the return spring so should not matter about rider weight, just how fast you want the post to rise and how gunky the seals are on the post. </span>Greasing the post shaft seal makes a massive difference, I followed the process in the video USE have posted on youtube and now get a good return speed at about 55psi 

The advice I had from USE was to keep pressure below 70psi if I can. With a fresh greased post 70psi is pretty scary fast. After 2 wet rides over the weekend 55psi still seems to be ok. A good point on this post is that the valve is accessible so if needed could be topped up mid ride if you are carrying a shock pump.

<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">With refitting the post I have also found that a stiffer cable outer helps keep a larger bend radius within the frame to help with tight routing. The fibrax cable which came with the post got a bit mangled when the post failed and just replaced it with some used old outer I had to hand. This is a stiffer cable and seems to help force the cable to take a larger curve over the bb in my frame (orange segment). Even with the replacement outer being used it has made the cable pull slicker over the original cable.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">For tight cable routing a lever with more advantage also seems to help. I originally experimented with the lever from an e13 post from my partners bike and in the end settled on a wolf tooth light action lever, this was before the cable change but haven't tried back with the original lever yet.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">A</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">fter a couple of months owning and despite one failure I am still pretty happy with the USE post. </span>I seem to go through cycles where I get fed up with bleeding reverbs and go to a mechanically locked post before they break and switch back. I not sure there is a perfect dropper post yet but for me I would prioritise ease of maintenance in a design, I prefer to be able to fix stuff myself with minimum of faff rather than need to rely on sending away to the supplier. <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">In total was about an hour to rebuild and fit the helix and only needed spanners and normal bike tools. In my experience rebuilding a reverb to get rid of sag was a similar time but need a special kit, bench vice and soft jaws.</span>

Value for money? on purchase price alone I am not sure when you add in the lever and the availability of other droppers for £100-£150. I guess I am in a position where I can afford to spend more on British manufacturing which is what swung my choice when looking for a new dropper post (I am an engineer though so possibly over sentimental about others making stuff in the UK). Will need to assess long term on life and service cost to really assess value.

For what its worth I would also say that the USE support team were really quick and helpful with answers to my questions when rebuilding the post.